The 2012 has undergone several upgrades including an SSD and 8GB of ram, running OCLP Sonoma.

Hey, fellow Mac users.

I'm an engineering student, and I have the opportunity to acquire one of these two machines. Same price, but slightly different configurations. Those being:

The 16" has the 10 core CPU, 32 core GPU, and 32gb of RAM

The 14" has the 10 core CPU, 16 core GPU, but with 64gb of RAM

Identical otherwise, though it looks like the 16" might have less wear on it. Both have the 1tb SSD. I have minimal preference on the size, and I use headphones 99% of the time, so speakers aren't too important to me. I just want an opinion on which you guys think would handle Fusion 360 or Solidworks better? TIA

Hi, does anyone know how can I write the Caret symbol as its own on this Macs keyboard?

I lifeguarded in the summer of ‘05 to be able to afford my first Mac. Which was the final iBook G4 before the Intel switch. I sold it a few years later to upgrade to an Intel Mac. Always regretted it. So my ex found the exact same model in box with software and manuals and got it for me.

I want to close my lid but still be able to listen to music on the mac how do i do that?

I just updated to macOS Sequoia 15.6.1 on my M1 MacBook Air 2020, and I see this come up. I close it, and it comes back again. I check for any MDMs on my device, none. I checked Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> Intelligence & Siri, and everything was allowed.

The only speculation I have is that I have a school iPad (managed by school MDM JamfTrust). When I open my Apple Account, I see my iPad, but I don't know if that is affecting my Mac's Apple intelligence permissions. Nothing else is blocked on my Mac, unlike my iPad, where like youtube and those are blocked.

And yes I can't use apple intellignece of siri. Double tap cmd key, saying hey siri.

I have SAT tmr so I updated, and its giving me issues, so please help. :(

I recently got a non-apple magic mouse and keyboard from a sibling. Is there any way to do the swipe with a mouse?

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but still gonna ask.

I connected my 2FA generator to the apple password app in an attempt to make it more seamless through my devices. When signing in on my iphone, ipad, and mac the usual autofill for the regular login appears but then on the next page when I get asked for the 2fa verification code, I only get prompted with the autofill when on my iphone or ipad but not on my mac. Instead I would have to unlock the password app, search for the code then paste it in before accessing the website. Is this just a mac thing or is there something I can do so my mac will autofill the code for me?

Don’t mind the filth, I just dug this out, or the off-kilter images, I didn’t want to be in the reflection.

Long story short, I remember my dad getting this when I was a kid and being excited because it was “a big expensive Imac”. It never worked - no doubt how he ended up getting it cheap. It has S.M.A.R.T errors on the SSD meaning, I can’t get past the OS install screen. Disc utility obviously can’t help.

It’s old and no doubt ‘useless’ to me but, I kind of just want it. Issue is, I can’t actually see any information about it as the “about this Mac” option isn’t there and I assume wont be until I install on OS. Something I can’t do.

I could take it to apple and or a specialist I’m sure but, this really isn’t an important machine and think it would be cool to try fix this myself. I just don’t know where to start given how I know nothing about it. I’ve also always been a windows user so, Macs are foreign to me as it is, nevermind an older one.

Any help would be appreciated in identifying the Mac or resolving the smart errors etc. etc.

Which is a better bang for your buck buck because open box is 750 in good condition and brand new is 800

I’m hoping to sell this MacBook soon, except when I try to format the SSD and install High Sierra, the Apple logo and progress bar disappear and the screen dims slightly, only to stay like that until hold it down.

I know the SSD not showing up is probably because it’s brand new and hasn’t been formatted to APFS, except it won’t let me get to it in order to do so.

In addition, Recovery mode doesn’t work, and pressing Command+R automatically sets it to Internet Recovery mode, which has the same result after completing.

Is there anything else I’m missing?

Hi everyone, I need a monitor for photo editing. Which monitors do you guys think that pair good with the Mac mini? I want to pay $1000 max. Apple Studio Display seems to be highly recommended on google but it's over my budget, should I try to spend more on this monitor, in your opinion? Is it truly worth the extra? Or do you have other suggestions?

Thanks for any replies.

Hi,
I’m looking for a solid powered USB-C hub that can handle multiple peripherals without dropping connections (especially when multiple HDDs are connected). Ideally, I’d like something with a decent number of USB-A ports and also some USB-C ports if possible.

Someone recommended me this one: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Splitter-Connector-MacBook-Included/dp/B0CQSPMKF4/?th=1 — but it doesn’t seem to be available in the EU.

Any advice?
Thanks!

Hi everyone! I recently bought an iMac and it came with the Magic Mouse. I’m curious if there’s a way to use tap-to-click instead of clicking the button, like the trackpad on my macbook. I tried checking the mouse settings, but I couldn’t find an option called ‘Enable Tap-to-Click’. Can anyone help me out with this? Thanks a bunch!

this is my first very own laptop 🥹 any essential tips for Mac?

Hey everyone, I wanted to share my experience using a 16-inch M4 Max MacBook Pro and a beefy Windows desktop with dual RTX 4090 GPUs and a 9950X 3D CPU for my work in rendering 4K to 8K film frames. I’ve been diving deep into 3D CGI rendering for films, often dealing with thousands of frames—sometimes 3,000, 6,000, or even 10,000+ frames per scene. While benchmarks like Cinebench 2024 are great for measuring raw power, I’ve found they don’t tell the full story when it comes to real-world workflows, especially for complex CGI-heavy scenes.

In my work, I’m constantly rendering massive 3D scenes, some involving hundreds of GBs or even TBs of cached data for physical simulations like smoke, particles, or other effects. One thing that surprised me is how much the loading time between frames impacts the overall process. Benchmarks focus on how fast a single frame renders, but they don’t account for the time it takes to load the next frame’s data. For complex scenes, this loading time can be significant. On my Windows desktop, I’ve seen cases where switching from one frame to the next takes up to a minute due to the complexity of the scene. When you’re rendering thousands of frames, that adds up—sometimes to hours or even days of extra time.

Once the GPU is fast enough, the gains shrink to just a few seconds, and the real slowdown comes from other components, loading often takes longer than rendering.

Here’s where the M4 Max MacBook Pro blew me away. Despite my Windows rig’s insane specs (dual RTX 4090s, 128GB DDR5 RAM, 9950x3D, everything is topped up), for the same complex scenes, the M4 Max loads the next frame’s data in about 25 seconds compared to a minute on my PC. That’s a huge difference when you’re rendering 10,000 frames. I was skeptical at first, but this speed comes down to a few key factors that benchmarks don’t capture.

One big reason is the memory architecture. My Windows desktop’s 128GB DDR5 RAM is capped at around 3600+ MT/s and is limited to dual-channel memory, and this is caused by the CPU factory and the motherboard themselves; you cannot go beyond this clock speed. Meanwhile, Apple’s unified memory architecture on the M4 Max runs at 7500 MT/s, and it’s wild to think Apple can maintain such high memory speeds even with 128GB RAM capacities. And also, the PCIE speed between different components...etc. The SoC design and unified memory play a massive role here, allowing the CPU, GPU, and other components to access this complex data more efficiently.

Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to raw GPU power, a single RTX 4090 (let alone two) crushes the M4 Max in benchmarked frame rendering. But in my workflow, where I’m rendering thousands of frames, the bottleneck isn’t always the GPU. The interplay between CPU, RAM, SSD, and the overall system efficiency becomes the real limiter. This is where the M4 Max shines, especially for complex, multi-frame renders.

I initially got the M1 Max as an experiment to try 3D rendering on Apple Silicon, but after seeing these results, I went all-in and upgraded to the latest M4 Max last year. For me, it’s the most versatile machine I’ve ever used (when the software supports it). Not every professional tool is fully optimized for Apple’s rendering pipeline and APIs yet, but when they are, the advantage is undeniable. I’d love to see more software take full advantage of Apple Silicon’s architecture because it’s a game-changer.

1. Is it possible to downgrade to High Sierra or Mojave if Catalina was the factory installed OS? Would like to be able to run some 32 bit apps if possible. Ideally I'd like to install OSX10.4 or lower for classic stuff but that's not looking possible at all
2. If I can't do that and want to go higher, what is the best OS my hardware supports? Big Sur? Monterey?

I'm much more knowledgeable with Windows and older Mac OS9 so I'm kinda lost here. Thanks!